Current Popular HMDs

• Oculus Rift
• HTC Vive
• Samsung GearVR
• Playstation VR
• Google Cardboard

VR History

• Virtual Reality is not a recent phenomenon.
• It is being "dug out of a grave."
• VR has been lurking and waiting for its moment.

Atari

• In the late 70s, Atari funds research and development for HMDs due to the wake of their success.
• Research and development for HMDs ended in 1983.

HMDs in the 90s

Nintendo Virtual Boy

• low cost option
• only in black and red
• 2D game

Forte VFX1

• First Person
• Concerns try to address similar to today's problems
• Struggled to strike a balance between cost and technology

Current VR Climate

Technology

• Technology has vastly improved due to Moore's Law
• Improved GFX
• HMD headsets can go to 90hz

Cost

• Cost for high end has gone down
• 1100 for Forte VFX1
• Few Hundred in savings compared to Oculus Rift
• Preorder sales have proven that the cost is good enough.

VR creates a market for devs to create apps.

Oculus

History

• Founded by Palmer Luckey and Brendan Iribe in 2012
• Presented Prototype running John Carmark Software at E3 2012
• Started Kickstarter Campaign to fund the project
• Oculus - Latin for eye
• Original name was StepN2theGAME
• Bought by Facebook for $2 billion dollars

The Product

Features:

• Display with 1080x1200 resolution for each eye
• 90hz refresh rate
• 3D audio effect
• 4 USB ports

Requirements:

• Video Card NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 Equivalent or Greater
• CPU Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
• Memory 8GB+ RAM
• Video Output Compatible HDMI 1.3 Video Output
• OS Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer

Development for the Rift

• Unity Development
• Audio SDK
• Mobile SDK
• PC SDK

Gear VR

• Samsung GALAXY
• 360 View Range
• Touch-pad Interface on the side of the device

HTC Vive

Features

• 32 headset sensors for 360 motion tracking
• 110 degrees of vision
• Front facing camera blends real world elements into the virtual
• 2160x1200 resolution with 90hz refresh rate
• Requires about 15 feet

Market Information

• Pre-orders ship May 2016
• Price $799 + shipping
• Package contains headset, two wireless controllers, two base stations (360 enabling)
• Sold out in 10 minutes on 3/1 (15,000 copies)

HTC Vive Developing

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Playstation VR

• October 2016 - $399
• Cooperative Display
• 100 degrees FOV with 360 degree head tracking
• 5.7" OLED display @ 120HZ @ 1920 x 1080 RGB
• Less than 18ms
• 37.2M PS4 Market
• 100+ games with VR support
• Playstation Move and Camera sold separately - $100

SummerLesson.jpg

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Playstation VR examples^

Google Cardboard

• Affordable and Accessible (less than $20)
• All you need is a lens, cardboard, and a phone
• Gets the job done
• Many applications available in the Google Play store
• A very neat SDK (For Unity and Android)

Problems with Google Cardboard

• Good VR experience but not great
• Very low quality build
• Does not come with head strap
• Not comfortable

Developing

For GearVR development (Unity):
http://www.samsung.com/us/samsungdeveloperconnection/developer-resources/gear-vr.html

Get started with developing for Google Cardboard here!
https://developers.google.com/cardboard/overview